Average household income is RM5,900 per month? 1 earns RM500K, and 99 earn RM900 - gives average of RM5,000plus

Malaysians earn RM5,900 per month? 

Nope, they are talking about AVERAGE(Purata) - If one person earns RM500,000 per month, and 99 earns RM900 - the the average monthly income would be RM5,891-00. So from increasing averages, it may mean that the rich are just getting richer and the rest are still as poor..

We really need the information about figures of households having income less than RM500, RM1,000, RM2,000, RM3,000, etc - that would give a clearer picture of Malaysia. 

Remember BRIM - that provided financial assistance to families earning RM3,000 and less - and indication that people are poor and need financial assistance to survive in Malaysia today...

What is the poverty line income of Malaysia today? - I have been trying to get these figures but have not been able to get it. With increased cost of living, Poverty Line Income for households may be RM3,000, and for individuals living alone, it may be RM2,000 - given that this is condition for receiving BR1M? What is it?

Unjust BR1M - the poorer must receive more assistance...the richer households lesser

21 million poor Malaysians in need of government financial aid? Poverty line income should be increased to RM3,000 in line with BR1M

 

  

 

RM5,900 a month income is simply not true – Steven Sim

Published: 9 September 2014

People say politicians often tell lies. But really, more often than not, they actually give us statistics. What is the difference? I'll let Mark Twain tell you: “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics”.

The latest statistics our government proudly brandish at us is the report that household income in Malaysia has surpassed RM5,900 a month. This was presented by Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar, the former Maybank boss roped into the Cabinet as “economy minister”.

Intuitively, most Malaysians know it’s a farce. Why?

Because many families we know, maybe including our own, earn much lesser than RM5,900 a month. 

 

Because even the government itself proudly claimed that its cash transfer programme BR1M has benefited 80% of Malaysian households. The only condition for BR1M is that a recipient household must earn less than RM3,000 a month.

Because as recent as September of 2013, the government said that 82.5% of young Malaysians below the age of 30 earn below RM3,000 a month. They constitute more than one-third the workers in Malaysia.

Because according to the 2012 Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey (HIS/BA 2012), the bottom 40% of Malaysian households only earn about RM1,800 per month.

Additionally, while the HIS/BA 2012 already noted that the average Malaysian household earns RM5,000 a month, 50% of Malaysian households actually earn less than RM3,626 monthly.

How did that happen?

Statistics, the art of telling official “lies”
(Caveat: I love statistics because if used responsibly, they provide useful insights into reality.)
 

The "economy minister" used the latest HIS/BA 2014 which has yet to be published by the Department of Statistics on its website. Hence, I will use the HIS/BA 2012 to illustrate how he has cleverly used statistics to paint a rosy picture of our earnings.

Abdul Wahid used mean household income to demonstrate that we are already earning RM5,900 a month. 

 

In the HIS/BA 2012, as mentioned above, the mean household income was already RM5,000 a month. This was basically arrived at by averaging the total income of all households with the total number of households.

As we all know, an average works well if the data set is symmetry, i.e., if everyone has roughly the same salary in this case. Otherwise, a one or two greater values in the set will significantly skew the average from the other values.

We may just add a local twist to the famous anecdote: Bill Gates entering into a workmen's bar, immediately turned everyone into a millionaire, if a minister like Abdul Wahid comes in to take an income survey and presented the mean income of the bar patrons.

On the other hand, the HIS/BA 2012 also reported that the median household income in Malaysia was only RM3,626. Median gives a better picture of an asymmetrical set of data, that is, a set with values which differ greatly from one another. It divides the set equally into two parts above and below the median value.

Thus according to the HIS/BA 2012, 50% of Malaysian households actually earn less than RM3,626 monthly although the average income is RM5,000 a month.

Both are valid statistical outputs, so what is the problem?

If you ask me, the problem with such “dishonesty” is not much about the government lying to us but rather the government lying to itself. By patting its own back on the so-called achievement, the government created a false sense of its own success, thus risked ignoring the real situation and the work that still needed to be done.

During my first parliamentary sitting in 2013, the self-same "economy minister" proudly told the House that because our country’s unemployment rate was below 4%, according to economist John Maynard Keynes, we can be deemed to have full employment. Since then, I have been pointing out that such self-congratulatory perspective continues to blind the government towards the real condition of employment in this country, ranging from high unemployment among young Malaysians including graduates to the issue of underemployment, from unfair industrial practices to gender discrimination in the job market, from our over-dependence on low-skilled migrant labour to brain drain.

Similarly, when someone the stature of an "economy minister" says we are already earning RM5,900 a month, the government risked overlooking the actual problems of low wages, high cost of living, high indebtedness among Malaysians and income inequality.

Even with all the reports showing economic growth, we have failed in the last 20 years to achieve any significant improvement to close the gap on inequality.

According to Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni, Malaysia’s Gini Coefficient Index, which measures inequality (0 means perfect equality, 1 means perfect inequality), was 0.431 in 2012, one of the highest in the region, compared to countries such as Thailand 0.4 and Indonesia 0.37.

Thus, the problem about telling lies is not that others will be convinced but rather the one telling the lies believed his own lies. – September 9, 2014.

* Steven Sim is MP for Bukit Mertajam. * This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/rm5900-a-month-income-is-simply-not-true-steven-sim#sthash.86KHXyrz.dpuf

Taraf hidup rakyat meningkat, purata pendapatan isi rumah 2014 RM5,900, kata Wahid

Published: 8 September 2014

Kajian Pendapatan Isi Rumah 2014 menunjukkan taraf hidup rakyat meningkat, kata Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar. Gambar fail The Malaysian Insider. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angka awal Kajian Pendapatan Isi Rumah 2014 yang dijalankan kerajaan, menunjukkan taraf hidup rakyat meningkat, dengan purata pendapatan isi rumah melepasi RM5,900 sebulan.

Menteri Di Jabatan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar berkata ia merupakan pencapaian yang ketara berbanding hasil kajian pada 2012 yang merekodkan purata pendapatan isi rumah sebanyak RM5,000 sebulan.

"Daripada segi meningkatkan ekonomi, kita sudah berjaya, dan dibuktikan dengan pertumbuhan keluaran dalam negara kasar (KDNK) sebanyak 6.3% pada separuh pertama tahun ini.

"Namun, mengembangkan ekonomi semata-mata tidak mencukupi kerana kita juga mesti memastikan ia dapat dirasai rakyat, daripada segi gaji lebih tinggi yang mesti selari dengan produktiviti," katanya pada sidang media di luar acara Simposium Ekonomi Global 2014. Nisbah gaji kepada KDNK di Malaysia berkembang kepada 33.6% tahun lepas berbanding 29.3% pada 2008.

Menyentuh ringkas Rancangan Malaysia ke-11, Wahid berkata kerajaan kini berada pada kedudukan yang baik untuk membentangkan rancangan pembangunan itu di Parlimen Mei tahun depan berikutan penyelesaian pelarasan awal dengan 12 kerajaan negeri.

"Hanya tinggal Sabah. Saya akan menemui ketua menteri dan Kabinet negeri minggu depan," katanya.

Simposium 3 hari ini yang bermula Sabtu, dianjurkan Kiel Institute for the World Economy dan dihoskan Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).

Simposium sebelum ini berlangsung di Istanbul, Turki dan Rio de Janeiro, Brazil dan pertama kali berlangsung di Malaysia. – Bernama, 8 September, 2014.

 

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/bahasa/article/taraf-hidup-rakyat-meningkat-purata-pendapatan-isi-rumah-2014-rm5900-kata-w#sthash.TuEbBBPR.dpuf

RM5,900 average household income? Lies, damned lies, and statistics, says MP - 
 On Sunday, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar (right) was quoted by national news wire Bernama as saying that the average household income in the country has risen to over RM5,900 a month. ― Picture by Choo Choy May 

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 ― The federal minister's claim that Malaysian households make an average of RM5,900 monthly is a farce that does not represent the actual earning capacity of most Malaysians, an opposition lawmaker said today.

DAP's Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim said the figure is a result of creative use of statistics in the 2014 Household income Survey (HIS) preliminary report to paint a “dishonest” picture of increased prosperity among the people.

“By patting its own back on the so-called achievement, the government created a false sense of its own success, thus risked ignoring the real situation and the work that still needed to be done,” he said in a statement.

On Sunday, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar was quoted by national news wire Bernama as saying that the average household income in the country has risen to over RM5,900 a month, a significant increase from the RM5,000 monthly average recorded in the 2012 HIS.

Sim stressed that the figure does not make sense when the government itself admitted that 80 per cent of Malaysian households had benefitted from the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) cash aid programme, whose recipients must earn less than RM3,000 a month.

He added that government statistics also showed that 82.5 per cent of Malaysians below the age of 30 earn less than RM3,000 a month as at September last year.

The first-term parliamentarian noted that Abdul Wahid's figure was derived from averaging the total income of all households in the country, regardless of earning capacity ― a method that invariably puts out skewed findings due to the income inequality.

Sim stressed that the median household income in Malaysia ― which stood at RM3,626 in the 2012 HIS ― gives a clearer idea of how much Malaysian households actually earn as it differentiates between low and high income earners.

He warned that the government's habit of glossing over figures could distract from its responsibility in dealing with the cascading issues of employment conditions, youth and graduate underemployment, unfair industrial practices, gender discrimination, over-dependence on low-skilled migrant labour and brain drain.

“According to Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni, Malaysia’s Gini Coefficient Index, which measures inequality (0 means perfect equality, 1 means perfect inequality), was 0.431 in 2012, one of the highest in the region, compared to countries such as Thailand 0.4 and Indonesia 0.37.

“Thus, the problem about telling lies is not that others will be convinced but rather the one telling the lies believed his own lies,” he said. - See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/rm5900-average-household-income-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-says-mp#sthash.iarSRvL3.dpuf